“I was born in Jersey City and moved out to the suburbs, Scotch Plains when I was about 8 years old,” says the man known as “New Jersey’s Bad Boy” as he discussed his upcoming performances at the Victoria Theater at NJPAC in Newark, April 7 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Mike Marino has performed his comedy in venues all over the world, yet this guy from North Jersey really didn’t intend it to happen that way.

“I’ve been an actor my entire life, ever since I was a little kid; I never really wanted to be a comedian,” he says. “I didn’t get into comedy until I was around 28 or 29. I had already been on a lot of TV commercials and I was in soap operas (‘One Life to Live,’ ‘As the World Turns’) and when I moved to California trying to get work as an actor, a lot of people kept saying that I was funny … so I just went with it. I started meeting a lot of other comedians. I cut my teeth at the Comedy Store and I got addicted to it.